Dubbed, 'Britain's worst ever paedophile,' Huckle used his passport, teaching qualifications, and mild manner to systematically abuse some of the poorest children in South-East Asia during an eight year spell.

He, according to one Malaysian teacher, "offered hope to those in need," but would repay them by, "destroying all that we held dear."

Huckle filmed his abhorrent deeds for payment on the dark web, he lamented western girls' self-importance, and he wrote a manual on how to spot potential Asian victims.

The making of a monster

Huckle was a cerebral, socially awkward man. Born into a normal middle class family in Ashford, the 31-year-old, told police he had an "ordinary upbringing".

Attending the Harvey Grammar School in Folkestone, classmates claimed Huckle was a loner, someone who avoided groups and engagement with others.

After leaving education, Huckle became a TEFL (Teacher of English as a Second Language) teacher, and like many, decided to combine this with his passion for travelling.

Unlike the many, Huckle desperately craved attention: he honed in on the poorest and most vulnerable areas of South East Asia, where he knew that a British passport bought him the kind of respect he could never hope to earn at home.

'Impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids'

The abuse began during a gap year to Cambodia in 2006, where Huckle systematically raped two sisters, aged four and six.

In 2011 he moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after spending time in Vietnam and Cambodia, enrolling as a student at the Metropolitan University - during this period he gained access to orphanages and schools posing as a freelance photographer.

Once trust had been established between Huckle and the various orphanages and schools, he would attach himself to the most vulnerable children, offering days out to theme parks, photography lessons, and assistance with their English lessons.

Paedophile Richard Huckle

With the families and support workers happy to have such a seemingly generous, educated Englishman in their midst, Huckle began profiting from his sexual abuse.

He bragged online that, "Impoverished kids are definitely much, much easier to seduce than middle-class Western kids," and charged other child-abusers for the chance to watch his depraved acts.

Paedophile Richard Huckle

With his confidence buoyed, and an income trickling in off the back of his depravity, Huckle even wrote a manual titled, Paedophiles & Poverty: Child Lover Guide - where he leered at societies inability to see through his deception and depravity.

In one part of the 60-page manual, he said: "'I'd hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care."

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'His depravity, his cruelty, his evil, knew no bounds'

Officers from the Australian Force Argos were tasked with stopping so called 'paedophilia tourism' and soon uncovered an intrinsic world where western paedophiles could help one another online.

Operating on the dark web on an encrypted network called 'The Love Zone,' Huckle would discuss his plans, boasted at how susceptible his victims were to him, and showed material in return for funding.

In one gruesome video discovered by officers, Huckle sexually abused two girls simultaneously - one of whom was wearing a nappy, and believed to have been around 6 months old.

Paedophile Richard Huckle

By this time, the task force were homing in on an Australian care worker Shannon McCoole, who they believed was a key player in The Love Zone.

In a piece of cunning which officers claimed save the lives of hundreds of children, officers arrested McCoole, assumed his identity online, and continued to engage with other paedophiles; one of whom was Richard Huckle.

Arrest, release and rearrest

Telling his fellow child-abusers that he would be out of action over the Christmas period, Huckle was arrested at Gatwick airport on December 19 2014, but was quickly bailed on account he had no previous brushes with the law.

Having originally denied any wrongdoing to his parents, Huckle gave a drunken confession to his family that he had had sex with "young children" during his stay in Asia.

His parents kicked him out before alerting the police.

Paedophile Richard Huckle in an interview with the NCA

'Not guilty'

At an initial hearing at the Old Bailey on January 6 2016, Huckle pleaded not guilty to 91 charges involving child abuse.

Frustratingly for the task forces investigating Huckle's acts - his laptop only gave away a tiny percentage of his abuse - with careful encoding and encryption leaving "the vast majority" of evidence hidden - Huckle refused to cooperate with the officers in retrieving the data.

In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle changed his plea to admit to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a particularly disturbing request to watch all of the evidence against him in court.

The trial itself was brief, lasting only two full days - on June 3 Huckle was found guilty on all counts, and on June 6 Huckle faced justice for all the misery and anguish he had inflicted on so many.

'I completely misjudged the affections I received from these children'

Huckle stood to meet his fate, his hands clasped together in prayer, where the judge sentenced him to 22 life sentences - with a minimum of 25 years to be served before eligibility for parole.

Paedophile Richard Huckle in court

In a pre-prepared statement to the media, Huckle claimed he was remorseful, and had acted on the basis of immaturity:

"I really understand and acknowledge the true scale of damage it caused to the Malaysian community. I had hoped to escape this mundane life of solitude in the UK yet was overwhelmed by the attention I received in Malaysia. I completely misjudged the affections I received from these children. My low self-esteem and lack of confidence with women was no excuse for me to use these children as an outlet. I am open and eager to rehabilitate from this offending behaviour. I don't want to become a martyr to sex tourism in Malaysia. This was all my doing as a consequence of my immaturity and I'm truly remorseful."